ABSTRACT
THE manuscript Journal here printed was found among the papers of Sir James Stevenson Barnes, one of the best known of Wellington’s Peninsular brigadiers, who executed five days after Sauroren an attack which Wellington called the best and boldest that he had ever seen in his life. Sir James’s heirs supposed that the Journal, which is without signature or title, belonged to their relative, but this is clearly not the case, as he never served in the 2nd Division nor in Colborne’s brigade. Internal evidence makes it certain that the author was Major William Brooke of the 2/48th. He mentions that he was a major, that he served in the 2/48th, and (of course) that he was taken prisoner at Albuera. Now, Brooke of the 48th was the only major among the fifteen unfortunate officers who were captured by the charge of the Polish Lancers at the commencement of that bloody fray. He must undoubtedly have been a close friend of Barnes, and have either given him or lent him this manuscript. It consists of eighty-eight sheets of foolscap, partly with the watermark of B.W. 1810, partly with that of a lion statant reguardant in a crowned garter. They are bound together in a limp mottled cover. The writing is large, very slanting, and difficult to read, owing to the faded ink. The narrative was undoubtedly written immediately after the author’s return to England as an invalid, in the September that followed his escape from Seville. In no year after 1811 176would it have been natural for him to use so much paper bearing the watermark of 1810.
